


Redeeming Rita

by paddysgirl



Series: Conversations Surrounding the Redemption of Rita Skeeter [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 15:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7807384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paddysgirl/pseuds/paddysgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a reconstruction of the conversation which eventually brought Rita to journalistic glory and virtuous altruism (relatively speaking), as well as a glimpse at the origin of the circumstances and machinations which lead to the exoneration of Sirius Black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redeeming Rita

Hey, Rita! Get in here! Yes, yes, close the door babe - don’t want anyone else hearing this! This is big, Rita, big! You want a chance at the big time? This is it! Got a story for you, no. No! A series! Yeah! That’s what we’ll go with! And a book! Definitely a book!

 

So, here’s the deal, baby! 5 year anniversary is coming up! Well, in a bit, but you know how it goes, gotta investigate, write, takes a while. We’ve got time. Nobody else has this angle. 

Been 5 years since the Boy Who Lived defeated You Know Who! Yeah! Celebrations, stories, tours, memorabilia….. Big bucks are gonna get made, and the Prophet is gonna get some of that! 

 

The other papers, the rags, the magazines, wireless… they’re all gonna get in on the anniversary, just good business, you know. BUT, there’s nothing new out there! It’s gonna be a rehash! Can’t even print new pictures of TBWL, because nobody’s seen him! Yeah, yeah, I know, the books, the stories, the stuffed animals, Dumbledore’s reassurances

 

But get this, I want to do something different. I want to take a different approach. See, I was up at the school, up at Hogwarts over the weekend - reunion - and a planning session for The Anniversary; yeah, even the school is doing one. The way they’re going through the endowment, they have to raise money somehow, maybe we’ll do a piece on that, too…. Get Dave Creevey to do it? Yeah, have to look into that...

 

Anyway, you know in this business you have to network, finesse the old crowd, and well, I got tired of listening to the old... ah, to Dumbledore. So, I slip out into the foyer to take a look at the exhibits and to pour a little of the Ogden’s into my drink - just to give it a bit of a kick, and I hear this, this! Marauders at Hogwarts! Now, my lovely, I just had to get close enough to hear the rest!

 

Imagine my surprise when this group (the Lovegoods, Alastor Moody, the Edgar Bones, and a few others) gesture towards a series of mounted photos brought by Minerva McGonagle! Yes! Excellent photography, woman has a very good eye. Nine photos in all, a series of seven year/class photos of the same four boys, and two that are obviously post grad. Ages, I'd say, 11 to 19 or 20.

 

Which four boys do you ask? Well, this is where it gets interesting, Rita, my Rita! Four dorm mates, who evidently liked to prank each other and the rest of the school. McGonagle was their Head of House and named them The Marauders because of their pranks. Now, this wouldn’t be interesting, except for who they were! Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, James Potter and Sirius Black! Are you getting the picture?

 

Now, I knew they were friends, or rather, I was aware that Potter and Black were work acquaintances, but I wasn’t in school with them, so how would I know, right? They were behind me a good dozen years; these people, though, they were their year mates, or close to it. So, I listened, because you never know, my Rita, as you are aware, what you might hear. And what I heard? They were close, those four, right from the trip on the Express and The Sorting. But Potter and Black? Brothers! And might as well have been joined at the hip or shared a cradle from birth.

 

Did you know Black was in Gryfindor? First ever Black sorted away from Slytherin. How that ever got covered up, I don’t know, but Orion and Walburga Black did a good job of it. Old Arcturus? Who knows about Lord Black, but with Orion and Walburga’s pureblood agenda, I can see them keeping it close. Only two out of the four of those boys were pureblood, and that includes their own son. I can’t see her, especially, being pleased with that! Heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, consorting with Muggle borns? And them not even from well to do families? Yeah, she kept that on the down low.

 

So, those photos? Typical happy, crazy, foolish schoolboy pictures. Good looking bunch, for the most part. Pettigrew, well, he could have stood a bit less food and a bit more activity; Lupin and Potter were pretty average, well, Potter above average, I suppose. But Black? Smaller, shorter, and more fine-boned than the rest, but Merlin Almighty! Even as a youngster, the only word is beautiful. Same thick, black hair and grey eyes as his Black cousins, with a more refined bone structure. You’d have to go back a few generations I think, to see where it came from, because those looks certainly didn’t come from his parents. If he grew into those looks, and if I had been Moody, I’d have been worried every time he sent the kid out on a mission. If you know what I mean, Rita, and i’m sure you do.

 

Anyway, the other two photos. One was a wedding photo; Black stood up for Potter at his wedding, did you know? Did anyone who didn’t attend know? They kept it small, remember? No one covered it, even though it was the event of the year. They claimed security concerns, and since it was during wartime - Lily Evans was a muggle born, you know, and already a target of You Know Who - nobody thought anything of it. I doubt many beyond their small group realized that Black was Best Man. The other? Naming Day photo. Sirius Black in a chair, holding the Potter baby, James on one side, Lilly on the other. Black with an even more besotted expression on his face than the parents. And get this, Black was the Godfather!

 

Are you smelling this yet, my Rita? The possibilities? Yes? Can you see what is wrong with this picture?

 

I know, Rita, I know! Nobody worked this angle at the time. Think of it! What headlines! But it gets better!

 

Edgar Bones put a comforting arm around his wife, and said, get this, Rita," I still don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense to me, honey. I don’t see how they could have imprisoned him".

 

Understand? Make sense? Imprisoned? The entire wizarding world knows Sirius Black was guilty! Dumbledore assured us of it; the aurors who caught him reported him as 'off his rocker, completely out of his mind', and that he kept claiming he was' to blame'. We all know he was convicted that night and sent to Azkaban for life. We all know he was YKW’s right hand man, the top death eater!

 

But Rita, my Rita, my darling girl! HOW do we know?

 

Moody spoke up then, and claimed Black was the best auror he’d ever trained, and the brightest. And evidently Potter, Evans, and Black were top of their years at school as well. Anyway, Moody used the term 'Battle Mage' - and there hasn’t been one of those in generations! Since well before that thing with Grindelwald. I’ve checked. Since the muggle 1200’s. The Peverell’s. The fight against another Dark Lord. And get this! Battle mages aren’t trained by wizards; they’re trained by, and recognized by, the dad-blasted goblins!!! And that mage during the 1200’s? It was another Black. Oh, yeah. Was Sirius Black an actual Battle Mage? Who knows, but we'll find out. 

 

I can see you thinking, Rita. Hold that thought.

 

So, Moody goes on. About the tragedy it all was, but how he never saw it coming. Can’t see it now. Black, he said, had the highest arrest and conviction rate ever in the department. And he means right back to the inception of the DMLE at its’ chartering by the muggle queen, Elizabeth the First.

 

I can see it on your face, Rita. They were sacrifices, right, those other death eaters? To keep up Black’s cover, to give YKW his inside man. But Rita! What secrets did Black know? He was in law enforcement, yes, so maybe. But not politics. If Moody is correct, far from being the top inside man, Black should have been at the top of his wanted dead list.

 

And Rita? According to Moody, he was. It apparently got to the point he couldn’t go undercover anymore. He’d be on a mission and the death eaters would give up lesser but easier targets just to go after Black… and according to Moody? They hurt him, badly, more than once.

 

So, not, I think, sacrifices; but in actuality? The real thing. Ah, I see you agree. The ones who lived to be apprehended gave up name after name and secret after secret in an effort to lessen their sentences and to avoid the Kiss. Remember, my Rita? That’s how we found out about the Dark Mark, that it was tattooed onto their arms - that was never made widely known, was it. Still isn't. Hmmm. I wonder why? That was before Godric’s Hollow, wasn’t it….

 

In spite of all the information given up, Moody says, and he would know, Black’s name never came up! Not once!

 

Mmmm hmmm… work that thought, Rita. Work it hard, but listen. There’s more.

 

I didn’t know this, no reason I should have, either, but it isn’t typical DMLE practice. Of course, when did Alastor Moody ever do anything by typical practice? Moody forced his auror teams to submit their wands to forensics before and after missions. Never once was there anything questionable about Black’s wand. Never. And the DMLE keeps records. For centuries. And Rita? That wasn't all he checked for, either!

 

Hinky, you say? Why, yes. Yes, I believe it is. Aaannnd…. A damned good story, my Rita. A damned good story.

 

Let’s go for tea, Rita. There’s something at the Leaky Cauldron I want to show you. Then back here. I’m not done yet.

**Author's Note:**

> This a series of conversations which occurred prior to the publishing of Rita's incredible expose of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Sirius Black and what happened after.
> 
> Yep, my take on a fix-it, because I don't believe in universes which gratuitously kills off Harry's godfather. If it isn't obvious, I'm an unapologetic Sirius Black fan girl. I hope some of you enjoy this, if you don't - 's okay! But, please don't tell me something didn't happened in such- and- such a way, or so-and-so wasn't named this or that. Every bit of what is written is deliberate. Do tell me if you perceive something that will improve my writing - but be honest and constructive. Anything else will either get ignored, or will receive a polite "Thank you for your input."
> 
> So, first post here. I used to write as Roma, posting to Azkaban's Lair. A lot of life has happened since, and it is once again good, good enough to start writing again.


End file.
